Topic: Ledger nano S or Trezor T? - page 2. (Read 3288 times)

I'm sorry to up this thread again, but there is something i don't understand: if i've a trezor wallet with passphrase, and someone stole my seed, why he can't just simple import that seed on electrum and steal my btc?

It's because my trezor's passphare works as the electrum's passphrase?

Correct... the wallet you create using the "use hardware device" option will create a "watching only" wallet as the Trezor will only present the "xpub" master public key to Electrum. This means you will be unable to spend without the Trezor attached.

To spend without the Trezor you would need to create a "standard wallet" by importing the Trezor 24 word seed mnemonic.

thanks again!

now i know what to do.

When you talk about "watching only" wallet you mean that without trezor i can't made transaction, or, in any case i can't made transaction with electrum?

Because it'll help protect your privacy and also save you some transaction fees... if you go:

- Electrum1 -> Trezor
- Electrum2 -> Trezor
- Trezor -> TrezorPassphrase1
- Trezor -> TrezorPassphrase2

You have effectively linked ALL your BTC together... plus 2 extra transaction fees...


Much better to do:
- Electrum1 -> TrezorPassphrase1
- Electrum2 -> TrezorPassphrase2

Your BTC remain "unlinked"... and you only do two transactions instead of 4.

If you don't care about privacy you can send them all to same Trezor wallet first if you want and then split into two wallets... And if you don't want to keep your BTC separated, there is no need to create multiple Trezor wallets or Accounts.


You will create the "watching only" wallet for whatever passphrase you used to unlock the wallet when you create the Electrum wallet.

So, if you connect to Electrum and "import hardware wallet"... and use Passphrase2, you will get TrezorPassphrase2 wallet imported to Electrum... if you use passphrase1, you will get TrezorPassphrase1 wallet imported to Electrum etc.

To switch from one wallet to another in Electrum, you need to disconnect/reconnect the Trezor and unlock with the passphrase for the wallet you want to view.

thanks for your suggestion.

Can i ask why is better create first the two TrezorPassphraseWallet instead to add the Passphrase after?

Thanks again for your help!


it's clear!
And if i want to just connect my trezor to electrum with "import hardware wallet" procedure? i will have only one electrum wallet?



well, you explain me very well the point. It's better to use a passphrase  too.

mmmm, recover my trezor seed compromises it because there can be a possibly infection of my pc? Or for what other reasons?

My trezor seed will be ok if i simply import it on electrum with "import hardware wallet" procedure? I know that it will import only the public keys..

Thanks a lot!

thanks for your answer.

If i've understood well, the problem is this my sentence "I send my 3 btc to trezor, so, all of these btc have now only a seed and no Passphrase.".

So what i have to do is:
-send my btc from my first electrum wallet to a non-passphrase wallet trezor wallet
-then do the same thing for my second electrum wallet.

Is it correct?

I have chosen Ledger Nano S. However, it seems that each of them is good. So it is better to have any, than to live your funds unprotected.

So far... so good.


No... I do not recommend that you do this...


You should just do this... create the passphrases FIRST... then transfer 1 btc from "ElectrumWallet1" to "TrezorPassphraseWallet1"... and 2 btc from "ElectrumWallet2" to "TrezorPassphraseWallet2"... or, as I stated earlier, you can simply create multiple accounts in Trezor. Refer: https://blog.trezor.io/wallet-accounts-and-addresses-bdfa6b66b037 - The section on "Accounts". You can have up to 10 BTC "accounts" in your wallet... it's a bit like having a checking account and a savings account. The accounts are "separate"... ie. you cannot create a transaction that includes coins from Account#0 with coins from Account#1 in the same transaction... but all the accounts are generated from the same seed/passphrase.


To import the seed into a new Electrum wallet, you would enter the seed, click "options", select "BIP39 seed" and "Extend this seed with custom words"... you'd put your seed in, then on the next screen, you're prompted for the "extra words"... this is your "passphrase".

So you would need to create 2 new Electrum wallets... one for each "passphrase"...


If you use the "account" method, you'd still need to create 2 new Electrum wallets when restoring to Electrum, but instead of having passphrases, you'd simply change the Derivation Path (m/44'/0'/1'... m/44'/0'/2' etc).



I'm not sure what you mean here? Using a passphrase means you can effectively "hide" your actual wallet... someone could have your 24 word seed, but without your passphrase they will never find your actual wallet... bruteforcing a "strong" password (10+ alphanumerics+symbols) is impractical for current computers (length of time required measured in years etc)... so if your piece of paper with your seed words gets stolen, and you've used a passphrase, you have plenty of time to move your coins before the thief can access them. Without a passphrase, as soon as they have your seed, they effectively own your coins

From the Trezor blog:


Chainanalysis companies have been able to trace bitcoin transactions past mixers for over a year. Don't count on a mixer for privacy. If you need to recover your Trezor seed and passphrase to a different wallet see the guide on Trezor docs. This compromises your seed and passphase so you are better off just restoring to a spare Trezor.

I would vary the steps you are planning on taking.  For privacy I would not transfer ALL my BTC into the Trezor wallet without the password.  When you then move the BTC from that original wallet to the other two passphrase protected wallets you are creating a "trail" that can easily now link the other two  wallets to the original.  For privacy it would be better to move only 1 BTC (using your example amounts from your post) to the non-passphrase wallet.  Now you transfer the other 2 BTC to the remaining wallets directly from Electrum or wherever.  This way there is NO connection between those wallets at all in the blockchain.  On a Trezor when you use passphrases those wallets generated all have totally different MPK's and addresses.  If you handle your transactions properly you can keep them separate from view in the blockchain as well.  In my case when I did what you are doing I ran a commercial mixer between my Electrum and the Trezor wallet destination.  I wanted to make sure even the original Electrum wallet link was severed from my personal Trezor wallets.  You may not care about this, but I wanted to explain this to you and other readers.  During Trezor wallet creation this is the time to make it "alone" in the blockchain without reference to where the coins on it came from.  Just my take on this.

edit:  the passphrase issue is one you have to consider.  If you go the passphrase route (I do but that's just me) and ever need to restore because your Trezor breaks or is stolen you will need BOTH the 24 word SEED and all the passphrases.  If you forget a passphrase your coins are lost forever so pause and consider securing the passphrase if you go this route.  BTW - this is much better than a 25th word.  I hear that all the time but its not quite true.  I could hand you my 24 word SEED list and tell you to have fun finding my wallets.  You will not simply try adding a 25 th word and ever solve the math needed to build my passphrase generated wallets.

thanks for your answer.

I'm not sure that i have understood correctly what the links say.

Let's make an example.
I have an electrum wallet with 1 btc and its own seed and Passphrase , and an other electrum wallet whit 2 btc with its own seed and Passphrase .

I buy a trezor. I create a new btc seed for my trezor.

I send my 3 btc to trezor, so, all of these btc have now only a seed and no Passphrase.

Then i enable Passphrase encryption on my trezor.

Then i can create two different Passphrase and send 1 btc to my first Passphrase wallet and 2 btc to my second Passphrase wallet.

So, after that, i have to wallet with two different amount on them.

If i want to import my trezor's seed on a new electrum wallet, what happen? I will see a wallet with 3 btc, or what else? I don't understand this part

An other question: is it more safe use a Passphrase on trezor?

What you could do with the Trezor/Ledger is use different passphrases to generate a different BTC wallet for each Electrum wallet you have. The passphrase effectively acts like a "25th word" for your seed... and allows you to generate completely different wallets based off the same seed.

some references:
https://ledger.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115005214529-Advanced-Passphrase-options
https://blog.trezor.io/hide-your-trezor-wallets-with-multiple-passphrases-f2e0834026eb


Alternatively, you can setup multiple "Accounts" within your Trezor/Ledger wallets... and each account could act like your separate Electrum wallets. Each account has separate addresses/coins etc... but are all able to be recovered from the one seed.

thanks for the answer.

really i don't want to use old seed, you're right. I want to create a new seed from ledger/trezor and make a transaction from my electrum wallet.

But i want to do this for each electrum wallet i have.

You are very clear: this isn't possible.

Just a question: even the next trezor doesn't have this possibility?

Thanks again for your help!

One hardware wallet = one seed
As mentioned above, you just can't use more than one seed on a single device.
Why do you stick to that old seed / two old seeds so much? (Have you got it tattoed on yourself? Just kidding, no offense )
If you buy two hardware wallets, you can transfer your coins easily to your device for a little cost. If you don't want it to be done in ten minutes but in a day, you can use low fees. When you have a seed on a computer that is connected to the internet, you can't be 100% sure that someone has not seen it already...

It's a design limitation of current hardware wallets. They only allow for one seed per device. All wallets for each currency are derived from the same seed.

You simply can't have two different seeds at the same time.

In any case, importing a seed generated somewhere else into a hardware can actually render the security of the hardware wallet useless as there is a possibility the seed has been compromised before it even gets on the hardware wallet.

The safest solution is to let the device securely generate its own seed, so that it is NEVER on any device other than the hardware wallet.

Theoretically, a seed generated completely offline using dice etc could probably be just as secure, but a seed generated by a software wallet on a computer that is online should never been used long-term as a hardware wallet seed.

You can have two Trezors. They can both use the same seed, which is the usual way people do it. This means you have a spare available right away if your primary Trezor is lost or stolen. All accounts on either Trezor are derived from the same seed. You can set up two Trezors with different seeds but that does not really provide you protection against malware. The common bitcoin malware right now like Crypto Shuffler replaces bitcoin addresses on the clipboard which is why Trezor warns you to double check addresses before sending. If you are using good anti-malware like Kaspersky you should not have a problem.

thanks both for your answers, but i don't understand why this choice.

I understand that the hwwallet can't use the same seed on my "old" electrum wallet, but why don't create a two different seed if i import two different wallet?

i think it's more safe (from malware attack) have your coin splitted in two wallet

Short answer no. Your seeds for Electrum have already been displayed on a monitor so should be considered compromised. Each Trezor or Nano S has only one seed. You should just send your bitcoin from Electrum to your Trezor or Nano S.

Hang on for a second (clarification needed)
Your question is (if I understand it right):
You want to use two wallets for a coin (e.g. for bitcoin) on one device, or two accounts in one wallet?
Trezor supports one seed per device, that creates wallets for each supported coin (bitcoin, ethereum, dash, etc..) One wallet for a coin.
In the wallet you can set up maximum 10 accounts (10 bitcoin accounts, 10 dash accounts, etc. ethereum is a bit different). Each account can contain several addresses.
But this is for one seed. If your have different seeds, you can still use one trezor, but you need to set up a passphrase, but that's another story. You can check it on trezor's site:
https://blog.trezor.io/wallet-accounts-and-addresses-bdfa6b66b037